Rescue exercise in Thuringia's Sandbergtunnel exposes 127-minute delay and fax-based emergency alerts

Exercise scenario

On Saturday, 8 August, emergency services from across Thuringia conducted a large-scale rescue exercise in the Sandbergtunnel near Stadtilm, on the ICE line between Nuremberg and Erfurt. The scenario simulated a fire on an ICE train carrying 100 passengers, played by extras, with 30 of them portraying seriously injured individuals. More than 250 emergency responders participated. The exercise, initiated by the Ilm-Kreis district administration, which is responsible for fire protection, had been two years in preparation and was timed to coincide with a track closure for bridge construction work. The Sandbergtunnel measures 1,320 metres. Thuringia currently has 27 railway tunnels in operation, 22 of them on the new ICE route from Erfurt towards Munich.

How it unfolded

Until 10:15 AM, everything proceeded according to plan. After that, a cascade of failures began. The train driver's emergency call did not reach the local control center directly; it went to Deutsche Bahn's emergency control center, where it sat for 30 minutes before being forwarded. The local control center then dispatched only a single fire truck to the tunnel. According to the local newspaper "Freies Wort," it took more than two hours for the first rescue teams to arrive after the fire was reported. It was not until 12:22 PM, 127 minutes after the initial emergency call, that further rescue teams reached the tunnel's north portal.

Communication and technical failures

District administrator Petra Enders identified multiple problems. She said Deutsche Bahn's internal reporting path was too long, and that Thuringian control centers still communicate via fax.

A fax is, in my view, no longer contemporary. There is an urgent need for action here. We live in the age of digitalization.

Enders also reported that the train doors could not be opened from outside. Normally, she said, the doors can be unlocked with a Deutsche Bahn square wrench held by the tunnel base units once the train has been fully shut down, as is standard in such a scenario. She further cited communication problems between rescue units, the incident command, and the control center, as well as a technical failure in the control center that hampered communication with neighboring control centers. The failure initially went unnoticed because two serious traffic accidents on the autobahn in the Ilm-Kreis area demanded priority at the same time. Some units also had longer approach routes due to previously changed deployment planning.

Political reaction

Thuringia's Interior Minister Georg Maier (SPD) said the exercise had revealed weaknesses in the reporting and alerting chain.

Something like what happened on Saturday must never happen again.

Maier called for alarm pathways to be tested regularly in future, technically, organizationally, and practically. A similar large tunnel exercise last took place in 2019. The exact sequence of events is still being evaluated, according to the Interior Ministry. A spokesperson for the ministry noted that the scenario was somewhat unrealistic, since train drivers are instructed to drive trains out of tunnels even during emergencies, making it hard to imagine a burning ICE stopping in the middle of a tunnel. Enders called on Deutsche Bahn to review its internal procedures, train its staff, and investigate whether technical problems occurred when shutting down the train.

Expert assessment

An unnamed fire brigade expert quoted by the local portal "InSüdthüringen" said that if the scenario had been real, all passengers would have been dead long before rescue arrived. The exercise has prompted calls for urgent modernization of Thuringia's emergency communication infrastructure.